Parky86

Hi All,I'm trying to make an electronic "whack a mole" game, basically a board of 9 light up push buttons, a button will light up at random and the player has to hit that illuminated push switch, this will put out the light and another random button will come on, repeat for 30 seconds and then display how many buttons were hit in time.

I'm pretty sure the Arduino will be a good platform for this but I have no idea what "illuminated push buttons" I'd need (ratings etc) or where to get them (I'm in the UK).

Really appreciate any advice on this project, I've not touched electronics since a (very) little bit at Uni and looking forward to getting back to it.

even heavier duty would be switches intended for childrens science parks.

"Pete, it's a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." Ulysses Everett McGill.Do not send technical questions via personal messaging - they will be ignored.I speak for myself, not Arduino.

Retroplayer

Parky86

Thanks guys, I found some big buttons on amazon but when I asked the seller if they'd work with something like an Arduino they said no as they needed much higher power than the arduino would supply. Would appreciate some guidance on all the bits I'll need to get this hooked up.

Thanks

Retroplayer

The switch part shouldn't care, but the light probably does. What is "much higher?" If those switches end up being your best option, you will just have to look at methods to control a larger voltage for the lights. Not a big deal.

Retroplayer

Ahh, 120V lamps in it. Not practical. The buttons that both retrolefty and I linked to would be pretty much the same, but a bit bigger and the lamp can be powered with a lower voltage. Note that they are the same, just different sources. It appears you must be in the UK, so you are better off finding a local source for them.

Parky86

Thanks Grumpy_mike, farnells a great website. What do people think of these?http://uk.farnell.com/cherry/kfb2ala2rbb/switch-pushbutton-spst-10a-250v/dp/1674427Now I've found the arduino and the buttons what else will I need to get started? Apologies for all the questions but I'm a bit out of my depth here.

Also, how many of these switches could the arduino accept? I see its got 14 possible inputs but will these buttons take 1 for the led and 1 for the switch?

Thanks

Retroplayer

Since you will really only have one switch input at a time, I would use an 8-bit priority encoder (or more than one if you have more than 8 switches) such as the 74HC148. This will take the 8 inputs and reduce them to just three bits with the bonus of having a signal to let the arduino know that a switch was pressed. These can be cascaded to provide more than 8 inputs.

And for the LEDs, just do the opposite: use a 74HC138 which is a 3 to 8 demultiplexor. 3 signals will control 8 LEDs.

Together these reduce your pins from 16 to 8 (for 8 switches and 8 LEDs)